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Darwin was developed using a community model (unpaid developers) and included some Apple people. Apple did not start the Darwin project IIRC, but did become it's sponsor at some point. Much of the work was done pre-2000 during the 1990s. I think the license was a BSD variant, it certainly let people contribute work and it certainly let Apple take all that work and apply some changes, then close source the result, and sell the result as OS X. I can't call that copyleft because while Darwin source can be downloaded (as I noted in my OP), none of the additions in OS X can be.

Well you are simply wrong.

In March of 1999 Steve Jobs made a new announcement, Apple was giving away some of its source code. Apple then introduced Darwin. He also stated that Darwin itself was going to be Open Source, this announcement immediately drew Open Source developers, including myself, out of the woodwork and immediately drew support from the Open Source community. This announcement also ended the FSF Boycott that the Free Software foundation had laid on Apple Computer. Darwin is based on the original NeXTStep implementation of Mach brought over from NeXT Computer. Darwin 1.0 was released shortly after the announcement and while it was primarily for Apple PowerPC based computers, preliminary support for Intel based machines was built into Darwin.

NeXTSTEP (also written NeXTstep, NeXTStep, and NEXTSTEP[1]) was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube. It was later ported to several other computer architectures.

So in reality Apple actually open sourced most of the code from NeXTStep. The core of OS X is open source including Darwin and the code is released around the time when the system update is pushed to massess.

@crazycheese: Could you please focus on the core points and stop writing completely pointless text with no proper arguments? You also try to separate your own opinion from it because no one really gives a fuck about those. Then you could also check your facts before posting.

I had three points:

1. BSD is easier for companies than GPL. This is undoutably true in theory and in practise. It doesn't require you do anything and it's legally understandable.
2. BSD is more free than GPL. As long as you don't go redefining the word "free" then this is also absolutely true because it allows you to do more.
3. Apache/BSD is extremely popular for corporate software. This then again is statically true.

No matter how much bullshit you spew it doesn't change any of these. Your post was full of such idiocity that I'm seriously not going to waste more of my time on it.

Yes, you had 3 points all of which were covered in my response answer.
1. "BSD is easier for companies than GPL."
True for evil companies, useless for good companies. Answered by me.

2. " BSD is more free than GPL."
Lie. answered by me.

3. "Apache/BSD is extremely popular for corporate software."
For useless opencore projects or parts.

All three points apply to the areas, which are completely useless for outer people.

Its like claiming "Coca-Cola is free drink", hiding the fact that it only applies within microsoft offices.

But instead of reading my answer, you are pulling deaf line.
Well, in that case, please seek medical attention, clean that bullshit between your eyes and ears which you are refering to and maybe we can talk.
Because I can understand you pretty good, yet you fail to understand me. It must be something on your side, mate.

"No matter how much bullshit you spew it doesn't change any of these."
Oh, does this mean you are living in your own world where only things that you make up apply?
Well, you might also ask doctors for cure of schizophrenia. I'm sorry to hear that.

I think the point he's trying to make is that BSD license allows closing of the code: binaries can be sold without making source available.

Which IMHO is neither here nor there - you pick your license and you take your chances.

The anger seems to come from that this group of people speaks of their license as open source, but BSD license is only as open source as a user of it chooses to be, whereas GPL denies the right to close the source.

By way of example, remember Darwin and Apple? Yes you can still get Darwin, it's still "open source", but the license used in it's development allowed Apple to grab a copy of the code, add to it and release the product as Mac OSX, and not acknowledge Darwin devs at least as far as profit is concerned. That was kinda sleazy IMHO, and had Darwin been GPL'd then Apple could not legally have stolen all that work.

1. "BSD is easier for companies than GPL."
True for evil companies, useless for good companies. Answered by me.

Makes no fucking sense. If company is about to move to open source software then it's quite important that it's easy and safe and permissive licences are just that. You should understand that what is "evil" and what is not is completely subjective. Most of the major open source companies also use permissive licences including Red Hat and Google; so yeah I really doubt it is useless...

Originally Posted by crazycheese

2. " BSD is more free than GPL."
Lie. answered by me.

You can't just go and redefine words. BSD is more free than GPL as long as free actually means what free actually means.

Originally Posted by crazycheese

3. "Apache/BSD is extremely popular for corporate software."
For useless opencore projects or parts.

Most companies that develope open source software use permissive licences like Apache and BSD. It makes developing open source software easier and therefor more compelling. So yes, it kinda makes sense.

Red Hat? They use permissive licence for their cloud stuff for example. I think the important part here is that if we want open source software to succeed we need to make it easy and compelling for the new companies. They don't necessarily have to start contributing right a way because it's more likely for them to do so at some point in the future if they already are using open source software.